Friday October 12, 2001

Students currently enrolled in AIC programs will be allowed to finish

Arizona International College will close and its faculty and staff will lose their jobs as their contracts expire, UA officials said yesterday.

No new students will be admitted into AIC programs next fall, while those students already in AIC have four years to complete their current programs, said University of Arizona Provost George Davis.

In order to close AIC, UA officials need approval from the Arizona Board of Regents - permission that will likely be granted during meetings Nov. 29 and 30 at the UA, Davis said.

Twenty faculty members and 12 staff members at AIC will lose their jobs, said UA President Peter Likins.

"This is the only college that the university would even consider cutting," Likins said.

AIC students will receive counseling so that they may consider their options at AIC, or elsewhere, Likins said to AIC students in an e-mail yesterday. AIC currently enrolls 417 undergraduate students, 137 of whom are freshman.

"Students have a right to finish their programs, and faculty have contracts we need to respect," Likins said.

However Likins said he expected that a "good portion" of freshmen currently enrolled in the AIC program would not stay in AIC for four years.

Closing AIC is one way of offsetting an estimated $13.8 million in state-mandated budget cuts, Likins said. AIC received approximately $2,259,000 in funding for this academic year.

The UA will not save a substantial amount of money this year or next by closing AIC, because a large portion of the $2,259,000 pays faculty and staff salaries. Those salaries will continue to be paid for as long as each employee's contract mandates - some until 2006.

This is part of Likins' plan to make "strategic cuts" university-wide.

"We cannot weaken every part of the university equally, or we will weaken the whole university," Likins said.

UA officials could not say how many faculty or staff would be terminated next semester, or give the amount of funds estimated to be saved by the AIC closure.

AIC - a liberal arts college that was intended to become a free-standing campus - originated as an "experiment" that Likins moved from the Science and Technology Park near North Rita Road to its current location at 1609 E. Helen St. in 1997.

AIC was to relocate again in 2003, to an area north of the UA, and would have shared a campus with Pima Community College in a plan approved by the Arizona Board of Regents.

However that plan never materialized.

AIC was supposed to be financially self-supported as of this year or next, but still relies on the UA for funding, Likins said.

AIC was also supposed to be academically self-contained, with the majority of AIC students taking classes full-time at AIC only. Yet, 91 percent of AIC were enrolled in 12 or more units of class on the main UA campus.

The lack of financial self-support and academic independence, and a freshman retention rate of 50 percent - with 25 percent leaving college altogether and 25 percent leaving AIC for a different college within the UA - prompted UA officials to eye AIC when deciding where to make budget cuts, senior UA officials said in a letter to the campus community.